Longing for Palestine الشوق لفلسطين, Q&A with director

Palestine is always in sight, whether it is through the dead sea or on colonial footage; this programme of short films reflects on how love and longing for Palestine cannot be contained by objects or borders.

Jerusalem, The Flower of All Cities القدس، زهرة المدائن

dir. Ali Siam
1969
Original Language: Arabic (English subtitles)
Genre: Short, Documentary

Set to the famous song by Fairouz, Flower of All Cities, a harmonious picture of Palestinian civil life in Jerusalem is disturbed by the Israeli army’s occupation of the city following the 1967 war. A rare example of the work of Hani Jawharieh, one of founding fathers of Palestinian cinema.

Content notes: Themes of displacement, violence, and occupation. Brief graphic depictions of injured children, gun violence, murder and corpses.

Salt

dir. Mateusz Miszczyński
2024
Original Language: Arabic (English subtitles)
Genre: Short, Fiction

Through the paradox of the Dead Sea – where the excessive salinity rids the environment of life, yet creates a buoyancy that makes it near-impossible to drown – short film Salt considers how strength and perseverance are found amid conflict, drawing parallels with the everyday realities of life in Palestine. Inspired by In The Presence of Absence by poet Mahmoud Darwish, the film uses poetic language to enter a realm caught between a dream state and the tangible world – exploring this unique environment as a mirror of the political landscape that runs alongside it.

Content notes: Depicts a knife. Mention of death and murder.

Familiar Phantoms أشباح مألوفة

dir. Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind
2022
Original Language: Arabic (English subtitles)
Genre: Experimental

Familiar Phantoms is an experimental documentary short film about memory, history and trauma. Blending live action, special effects, private family photos and archival footage, the film explores the impact of fiction on the creation and reinterpretation of memory. Familiar Phantoms is inspired by anecdotes from my family history and my old childhood in Bethlehem, making it my most personal film to date. Shot in a derelict mansion and a black studio, the film oscillates between slow, fluid exploratory sequences and fast-paced collages of objects, mementos, family photos and Super 8 footage, its visuals and editing mimicking the actual workings of memory, constantly revisiting the same imagery alongside new fragments in search of meaning – while alternating between storytelling and ruminations on memory.

Content notes: Themes of Zionist colonialism, war, and violence. Mentions of death, exile and displacement, intergenerational trauma, political prisoners, interrogations, raids, gun violence and murder.

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing الزهور تقف بصمت تشهد

dir. Theo Panagopoulos
2024
Original Language: English
Genre: Short, Archive

When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender essay film questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and land.

Content notes: Mentions of British colonialism and occupation, displacement and genocide.

About the Guest

Theo Panagopoulos is a Greek-Lebanese-Palestinian filmmaker, film programmer and PhD researcher based in Scotland. His creative and academic work explore themes of collective memory, displacement, fragmented identities and archives.

He works between documentary and fiction and his most recent film, “The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing”, commissioned by the Scottish Documentary Institute and Screen Scotland, won the Best Short Film Award at IDFA, the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and was nominated for a 2025 BAFTA Film award.

He is currently in his final year of a practice-as-research PhD at the University of West of Scotland which explores decolonial methodologies and performance as counternarrative to never-before-seen film archives of 1930s Palestine.